On 3rd June, Family Of The Year will release their eponymous album via Nettwerk Records. The band – made up of brothers Joseph and Sebastian Keefe, a pair born in Massachusetts but raised in Wrexham, Wales, singer and keyboardist Christina Schroeter and guitarist James Buckey – write euphoric alt-rock-folk-pop songs with a gang-chanting bent, cult campfire stompalongs and heart-lifting ballads. Music you want to be a part of.
Recorded in Berlin and back home in Los Angeles, the new album is an exciting musical progression with a more electric sound than previous releases. Taking on new subject matters, the band’s assorted instrumentation and lyrical arc are emblematic of the last three years on the road and finding success at home and abroad.
Family Of The Year gained notoriety with ‘Hero’ from 2012’s Loma Vista and its featured appearance in the Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe winning film Boyhood. With 90 million combined YouTube and Spotify streams, ‘Hero’ also became a Top 10 hit in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland.
“With the success of ‘Hero’, we knew that more people were going to hear the new album. We were all about moving forward and making something new. We didn’t try to make a reactionary record or try to recreate anything we’d done in the past, we just wrote the same way we always have. We went into the studio and recorded songs that were dear to us and pushed ourselves to make something that we love,” says lead singer/guitarist Joe Keefe.
On new single ‘Carry Me’, which is released on 3rd June, Joe’s acoustic folksy finger-picking pairs with his gentle voice, then the song amps up with distorted rock guitar, backing the sing-along lyrics, “You got the smile I want to see, you’ve got the heart to carry me.” The upbeat song represents the fusing of the band’s past and present sounds, juxtaposing lithe folk with anthemic rock. While the music is uplifting, Joe says the lyrics come from seeing friends pull through on difficult situations. “There’s been some tough times and people in our lives who have gone through dark times,” he says, “but they have people to help them persevere.”
Elsewhere on the new album, the anthemic ‘Make You Mine’ is an ecstatic ode to summertime flings. From the soaring guitars and Sebastian’s propulsive drumming on ‘Facepaint’ to Schroeter’s slightly funky keyboards on ‘We Need Love’, the album burgeons with new effervescent energy of a band that has undergone a rebirth and a refocus. And underneath their indie power-pop, there is a message, Sebastian says. “Music is how we reconcile our world around us. Our music hopefully helps people to understand that no matter what, you can always defy expectations. It feels like a dream, to be part of the fabric of someone’s summer. That’s why we do this.”
Family of the Year hope to announce UK dates soon.